


The Blessing of Horus

by Sacredfire44



Series: Chosen [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Wings, Ancient Egypt, And change quite a bit, Gen, I'll probably add more tags later, Immortality, In the next part of the series, Pre-Canon, Puzzleshipping will appear later, The other series will join the timeline as well, This is the first installment of a series I've been working on for a while now, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sacredfire44/pseuds/Sacredfire44
Summary: Atem was born a normal child. He had ten little fingers and toes, five on each limb. He had chubby arms, a rounded face, and skin like the desert sand struck by the dying light at sunset. As far as physical appearance went, he was normal.(He did not stay that way.)
Series: Chosen [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967116
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	The Blessing of Horus

Atem was born a normal child. He had ten little fingers and toes, five on each limb. He had chubby arms, a rounded face, and skin like the desert sand struck by the dying light at sunset. As far as physical appearance went, he was  _ normal. _

_ (He did not stay that way.) _

Atem was bubbly and giggly, with a smile as wide as the sun. He was as smart as a little toddler could be, picking up words and hieroglyphics with ease and making his father proud the whole way. The court harem raised him when his father could not, watching him waddle around the palace with affection, watched over by the magician in training, Mahad, and his own older cousin, Set. They weren’t much older - certainly not enough to be left alone with the young heir to the throne - but they understood their responsibility.

When Atem was four years old, Mana joined their little group. Little Atem had snuck into the throne room to see what exactly his father did all day, and overheard a few peasants, asking to trade their daughter for resources and food.  _ A great courtesan for the young prince’s future harem, _ they’d suggested, despite the grimace that pulled at his father’s face behind the mask he wore,  _ or even a lowly servant. _ Atem didn’t understand, really, how horrible it was, but he understood that the girl was his age, and he’d never gotten to play with anyone his age before! He disregarded his little hiding game, racing forward and dragging the girl -  _ Mana _ \- away to play, to meet Mahad and Set, maybe to teach him some new games!

_ (He was a spoiled prince, and only barely four. He did not understand what it meant, to leave behind family and friends and freedom. To be abandoned. He did not notice the tears Mana worked so hard to hide.) _

When Atem was five, Mahad’s mentor died. Mahad, only nine at the time, took up his mentor’s mantle, the childish glee melting into premature stress and stiff determination that didn’t suit the boyish baby fat of his face. He stopped having time to play with him and Set and Mana, and with Set now old enough to begin his training for priesthood, Atem and Mana were left mostly alone. Group games, such as tag or dancing, were out, and Atem didn’t feel comfortable wrestling with a  _ girl _ . They turned to board games, and Atem fell in  _ love _ , pouring over the rules and strategies of Senet and Mehen, Mancala and Ur, Seega and Alquerque.  _ Dueling.  _ He lost a lot, at first, but then he started winning. And winning, and winning, and  _ winning _ -

Atem turned six, and everything changed.

* * *

“Atem, what’s that on your back?”

Atem paused, glancing up from where he’d been working on a strategy for Seega against an imaginary opponent. “Huh?”

Mana pouted, tugging him up from the ground. Any servant would have their hands cut off if they so much as touched the crown prince, but Mana knew by now that Atem would never tell. “Your back looks funny! The nubs are all weirdly placed!”

Atem blinked, confused. Sure, his back and shoulders had been aching for a few weeks now, but he hadn’t paid it much mind. Was it something worse? Was- was he sick?!?!

He reached for his back, eyes wide with panic. What if it was one of those pussy bumps that appeared on some of the sickest of peasants? But the bumps - because there were two, perfectly symmetrical on either side of his spine - were not soft-feeling, like he imagined they would be. They were hard. Like an elbow shoved out. He rolled his shoulder in an attempt to reach it better, and- and it  _ moved! _

“What- what in Ra’s name?!?,” Atem shouted, eyes wide. He reached behind himself, trying to feel, to see what exactly was on his back. “Mana, did you see that?”

“I saw it!,” She exclaimed, nodding rapidly. “We should tell Mahad! Or- or the priest! Or the Pharaoh!”

“Go get them!,” Atem ordered, still trying to crane his neck around far enough when Mana raced out of the room, bare feet slapping against the floor loudly.

* * *

Mahad had stared at Atem’s back when he arrived. He’d stared and stared and  _ stared _ until he’d finally huffed and dropped to the ground. The High Priest, with Set at his side, was examining Atem as well, old eyes sharp and stiff. Mana, crouched in the corner as was customary of a simple servant, watched in silence, fingers fidgeting nervously. With the High Priest around, she didn’t dare speak.

“Mahad,”The High Priest addressed rudely, not even bothering with the title his mentor would have received. Atem scowled. “I don’t suppose you know what this is?”

Mahad swallowed, and then shook his head. Atem could hear the shame in his voice as he murmured a soft “No”.

The High Priest huffed. “May I make contact, my Prince?,” He requested much more politely. Atem nodded, and a boney finger tapped the nubs on his back.

He flinched and fidgeted, and the priest hummed. “We will keep an eye on it, my Prince, and I will ask the Gods what this could mean. Until then,  _ Mahad, _ I will make sure you research this phenomenon.”

Mahad cringed but nodded despite. The High Priest straightened and made his way from the room, stopping only to call Set when the boy did not immediately follow.

The moment he was out of earshot, Mana shot to her feet and tackled Atem into a hug with a wail.

“He  _ doesn’t know _ , Atem! What if you’re dying?!?! What if it’s incurable? What if it’s too late?”

Mahad looked no less distressed, though he restrained himself. It was making Atem feel more and more scared. What was he supposed to do?

Mahad’s face softened and he stepped forward, drawing both of them into a hug.

“That won’t happen. I’ll figure it out, okay? Mana, keep an eye on it. Don’t leave Atem alone for too long,” He ordered, “If you need me, you may find me in my room.”

“Not like I could leave Atem, even if I wanted to,” Mana snarked, but her voice held no malice. Atem let himself relax into the arms of his two best friends.

Things would be alright.

* * *

Atem woke with a scream stuck in his throat, Mana and one of his father’s courtesans rushing around his bed, the High Priest chanting beside him with Set stumbling through the words as well as he could. Mahad had a book set at Atem’s desk, flipping through pages too fast to possibly really be reading.

“Ate- My Prince!,” Mana cried out, noticing him first. “You’re awake!”

“He’s awake?” That was Atem’s father. When had he gotten here? What was happening? Why- why- why did everything  _ hurt so much- _

A sound, tearing and wet and  _ sick _ , and Atem couldn’t- couldn’t-

There was ringing, black dots dancing in his vision as the figures around him moved, blurry splotches on a brown canvas. His throat burned, but no more than his body, the fiery intensity sweeping through him, and he had to move, had to- to do  _ something _ but he wasn’t sure what- what would make this pain go away? What would make it  _ stop? _

There were hands on him, grabbingtwistingpullingtouching- Atem couldn’t breathe, but he wanted them off, away already, go  _ away please it hurts _ -

Suddenly his face was pressed into his mattress and the hands disappeared. Atem wanted them back, wanted the grounding clarity to return. He shut his eyes tightly, fingers digging into fabric, and he felt almost like he was floating, disconnected from everything. Was someone screaming? He was cold. So, so, so cold.

His lungs burned, and he gulped in air desperately. The screaming stopped when he did. Why? What had  _ they _ to scream about?

Cool and wet, starkly contrasting a heat he hadn’t realized was building on his cheeks. He jolted, eyes opening just a crack. The screaming was gone. No, rather, he had stopped screaming. The pain was abating. Was it over? What was  _ it, _ anyway?

Mana was leaning over him, a strip of fabric soaked in water clutched desperately in her hand. She shook as she pressed it to his cheek, taking short, fast breathes as she did.

“It is over.”

The words were so sudden in the silent room that it felt as loud as pottery shattering, despite being barely a whisper. Atem whimpered, shutting his eyes again and leaning into Mana’s hand.

“Are you sure, Priest?,” His father questioned. A rustle of clothes - a nod? - and then the shuffle of feet as people left, one by one.

Even Mana left, her rag leaving his side. He whined, desperately seeking out the cool relief, but it was too late. And he was so, so, so tired… Too tired to speak, to seek her out, to ask her to stay.

(If he’d been full conscious, he would have wondered where she would go. She slept on a stiff servant’s cot in his room, after all.)

Everything went dark.

* * *

“That… That was…,” Mahad murmured. Mana stood silently behind him, and he subtly reached a hand back to comfort her. She didn’t have the right to break down here, not in front of her Pharoah and High Priest and Magician, but he could feel her shaking from her fingertips.

He didn't blame her. He’d known Atem since the boy was born. He’d seen the child pull temper tantrums and break down into tears because of a scraped knee, but… but he’d never seen him like  _ that. _

He’d be hearing those screams in his nightmares for a very, very long time…

The Pharaoh was wearing his mask again. Mahad wondered if he was just as shaken, if that was why he hid his face like that.

“High Priest, Magician, do you have any idea what happened?”

No. Mahad didn’t know. None of his books mentioned anything like that, nor had his mentor. He wanted to curl up and cry, to act like the child he was, but his Prince needed him.

“No, sir,” Mahad mumbled, eyes firmly planted on the Pharaoh’s feet. He’d been allowed to look if only by circumstance when Atem was- was sick, but that would not be forgiven so easily now that it was over.

“If I may, my Pharoah?,” The High Priest spoke up, polite and demure in a way he never was around Mahad or Set.

“High Priest?”

“I believe I may have an idea. Everyone here bore witness to what was growing on Atem’s back, did they not?”

Yes. Yes, Mahad had. He knew what he saw. Those bumps… they’d  _ burst _ open, like the egg sac of a spider, and bones had  _ grown _ out, unlike anything Mahad had ever seen before. Even before that, they’d been shifting beneath the skin, stretching it violently. Once they were free, muscle and skin had grown after it desperately, trailing up the bone like moss or ivy along stone walls in the wet season.

When it had finally settled, Mahad knew what he was seeing. The pinkened, goose-bumped skin… The delicate fold, ending in a point…

Like a newborn chick, like the baby ibises the four of them used to find and play with when they were younger. All that was missing now was feathers, and somehow, Mahad doubted those would take long.

“I believe this may be Horus’ mark, my Pharaoh. Atem has been approved of by the gods themselves.”

Horus. The falcon god.  _ Of course. _

“So Atem will be okay?,” Mana cut in anxiously. Mahad sucked in a sharp breathe, squeezing her hand warningly.  _ You can’t speak in front of the Pharaoh! _

“You insolent-,”The High Priest began, but the Pharaoh himself cut him off.

“If this is truly a mark of Horus, my Atem will be fine, young lady. In the meantime, return to him. If anything further happens, fetch us immediately. Dismissed.”

* * *

When Atem finally woke up, it was to a rough, wet cloth running through his hair, cool stone pressed against his chest.

He came to slowly, fading in and out as the world around him solidified. He was in his bathing chambers, rested on his chest atop the mosaic tiles. Mana was cleaning him, dipping her rag into a tub beside her. She’d never done that when he was asleep before, had she?

His head hurt, pounding viciously within his skull, and he relished the feel of the cool tile on his flushed cheek. Mana’s rag carefully ran over his back, before touching a sore spot that sent a jolt of pain up Atem’s spine. He couldn’t stop the groan that spilled from his dry lips.

Mana froze, then jolted beside him immediately.

“Atem! Atem, are you awake? Say something! Ah, I’ll go get Mahad immediately, I-”

“Mana,” Atem hissed, vision swimming as his head pounded, “Shut up, please.”

She huffed, but obliged. A soft splash of water alerted Atem that she was continuing her duties, but as she moved to wash his back-

He felt the rag, but it wasn’t his back she was touching, but it was- but- He hissed, drawing away, and something folded, pressing into his back, he could  _ feel it _ , feel it moving, and-

“W-what-,”He choked out, pausing to wet his lips before continuing. “What happened? What happened, Mana? I-”

“Sorry,” Mana murmured, setting her rag aside and grabbing a dry one beside the bowl. “And… well, Atem, you’re certainly you, that’s for sure.”

“What’s that s’pose to mean?,”Atem slurred out, voice pitched high in a whine. Mana snickered, drying him down in quick swipes of her towel.

“It means you’re weird, dummy.”

Atem didn’t want to move much, but her foot was next to his hand, so he swatted it tiredly.

“That mean Priest says you’re blessed by one of the gods, or something.”

Atem rolled his eyes. “Of course I am, Mana. I’m the Prince; all Pharaohs are blessed by the gods!”

“No, but, like, a specific one!,” Mana countered, pausing for a heartbeat before moving to dry- well,  _ whatever it was _ on his back. “I… I think it was like, some sort of bird-dude? Probably. Cause you got wings now-”

“WHAT?”

* * *

Mana could have broken the news a bit better, she admitted when she was older. But she was six and stressed out! She could be forgiven!

* * *

As expected, the blessing of Horus was seen by the people of Kemet as a promise of good fortune, of peaceful times and a just ruler. His wings were put on display as often as possible, the best jewelers and blacksmiths set to work crafting golden accessories, bejeweled chains and glittering gems strung across them carefully.

Within a day or two of growing in, Atem’s wings were coated in thick baby fuzz, three shades of gray speckling his wings. The feathers themselves took months to grow, with Mana spending more than one day grumbling as she helped him pick at itchy pin feathers or had to clean up any that had fallen out.

Enormous falcon wings. A professional - the one usually in charge of training their falcons for messaging and hunting - had identified them, mystified by their color but recognizing the shape and power behind them. 

The tips of his primaries and secondaries were the same bleached blonde as his bangs, stretching up each feather like the rays of a sun. In contrast, the tips of each of his coverts were a deep, bloody red that faded into black, making his wings appear speckled and unique.

The black gleamed red in the sun. Atem loved it, because the dark shade and gleam reminded him of garnets, and the gold of his accessories stood out better against the black than they did against his ceremonial white robes.

* * *

When Atem was fourteen, his father dead too early and a crown too heavy for a boy atop his head, Mahad finally figured out what, exactly Atem’s blessing meant.

A wandering trader from a far-away land toward the south had offered translated manuscripts to the palace library as a gift to the Pharoah, a show of good faith towards the gods he himself did not follow, when he passed through the city. When Mahad had read them, he had nearly jumped in shock.

Because one of the trader’s ancestors had written of another blessed by Horus, a woman who had sprouted wings as a child.

* * *

The woman had died during her 340th year, looking no older than she had at twenty, in combat. Atem wondered what that would mean for himself.

* * *

At sixteen, Atem sealed himself into the puzzle.

At sixteen, Mana watched her best friend kill himself.

At nineteen and twenty, Set and Mahad were prepping Atem to be mummified, a task they had been assigned as the Court Magician and High Priest, when they realized that even in the days it had taken them to pull themselves together, Atem appeared no more dead than the moment he had left them.

* * *

It was dangerous. It was a gamble not only against the god’s wrath, but also against Atem’s own happiness, because the entire mummification process was vitally important, as were the entombment procedure, to allow a soul to pass on to the Field of Reeds. But Set was determined, and although it was hard, he managed to convince Mahad as well.

Because Atem wasn’t dead. He was gone, sealed into the puzzle, and no pulse beat in his chest, but somehow, he  _ wasn’t dead. _

“Horus chose him,” Set argued, “And somehow, that blessing is protecting his body as it waits for his soul to return.”

“But how long can it wait?,”Mahad hissed back. “One day his soul will be released, but his body will have died of old age, and there will not be anyone to mummify him then.”

“My cousin is not that weak,” Set snapped back. “The woman you read about; she did not die of old age, did she? Neither will Atem! And what if his soul returns with nobody to return to? Alive but not? How would that affect his journey to the Field of Reeds?”

Mahad’s head bowed at last at that, eyes fixed on the unmoving form of the boy king, of one of his best friends.

He imagined attempting to do the mummification process, imagined cutting Atem open, holding his organs in his hands.

He was fooling himself to think he could do this either way, wasn’t he?

“Okay,” He agreed, “I’ll get Mana. Let’s do this.”

* * *

Atem’s winged sarcophagus was air-tight to keep out bugs, with a handle carved into the inside to unlatch and open it. A careful pathway was inscribed through the confusing tomb, one only a game master such as Atem would be able to navigate and follow.

Atem’s body rested, complete and whole, within his padded sarcophagus, by the time Set took the throne.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part of the series I've been working on for a while! I am very open to any constructive criticism anyone has, as I'll probably spend the next year procrastinating the second part of the series by editing this one over and over and over again.  
> Endgame for the series will be Puzzleshipping, so if you aren't a fan of that, take this and run while you can. The other yugioh series will join in later on in the timeline.  
> The title is not permanent, nor are the tags or the summary, and I apologize for that. I just finally worked up the courage to post my first fic on this website, and didn't want to waste time on details before getting it out.  
> I hope you all enjoyed! Next up will be Yugi, when I get around to it!


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